Bronze Sculptures, Bronze Figurines, and Bronze Gifts

Pirate Fairy 2

My Pirate Fairy is now 99% finished. Tiki, the fairy, was coloured with some green enamel.

I abandoned my original idea to use some black tourmaline as a feature stone on this sculpture when the stone fractured while drilling to set a pin. Instead, I used a wonderfully fine piece of iron pyrite.

The coin bag was cast as a shell and the fairy was pinned and soldered to the bag. Unfortunately, from this angle you can see two small casting pits in the fairy’s leg. Pits are my nemesis. I usually remove these as part of the chasing process, but I may not have seen these. It’s now rework time where I have to bring out my torch and files to complete this work.

The bag has naturally oxidized and darkened from the heating process with my torch. This is a natural patina.

The coins coming out of the bag were fabricated from British one pound coins. After brazing or soldering the coins together I usually put my metal in a weak acid bath to dissolve the flux. This acid bath is saturated with free copper ions. Unfortunately, I forgot that these coins have steel in them. When steel or other ferrous metal is put in this ‘pickle’ it allows the copper to plate onto silver or brass or other metals, so unfortunately all the coins ended up with a light copper coating. That’s why they all look pink in the picture.

I think I will leave it this way. Some like the colour and think this is a happy accident.

Another picture of the work follows. I have mounted the piece on honey onyx.